EDIT: Oh for the love of f*ck. We get rid of RoboMage for ONE day. And we get some FUCKING RoboLock the very next??(For those wondering, a Murloc Lock deck that apparently spams mini-minions to crash you before the game actually starts. Think "zergling rush".Are we *ever* going to get a serious metagame?

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

That sounds fun Kysen I didnt do to well in arena's last night Got the 100 victory achievement but thats about it. Had 3 runs that ended between the 2 and 5 wins. So I created a mage deck that doesnt work untill I get enough dust to make pyroblast ^^' and made a murladin deck and got up to rank 19 now with winning a lot in a row and only lost one now. Not to bad ^^

EDIT: Oh for the love of f*ck. We get rid of RoboMage for ONE day. And we get some FUCKING RoboLock the very next??(For those wondering, a Murloc Lock deck that apparently spams mini-minions to crash you before the game actually starts. Think "zergling rush".Are we *ever* going to get a serious metagame?

Made my first jab at an anti-lock for the flood I'm expecting tonight.I gave up all the anti-mage and slower aspects of the deck to focus on pure, undiscriminate smashing and effeciency trading.I'm just trying to find something to throw out for my Sylvanas. Probably an Argent Commander.

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

Looks like a standard Paladin deck to my eyes. I suppose it's the Knife Jugglers, Mad Bombers and Argent Squires that distinguish it. Might run into problems against a line of health-buffed Murlocs. Equality won't work when an Imp or Murloc's aura instantly reapplies.

My opinion on defeating a rush deck: taunts and hard-to-ignore big guys (hence why I like Druid and Shaman right now). Have you considered Sunfury Protector?

Pyro/Equality: cheap full clear.Pyro/Consecrate: double-dipping clear, perfect for health-buffed minions (consecrate hits first for 2, and AFTER that, Pyro its for an extra 1)Equality/Consecrate: Classic expensive sweep for non-buffed.

And then you can push silly things like Pyro -> Cons -> Equality. It's a bit expensive, but you sweep for 2, then once more for 1 (most Blood Imps are D.E.D. dead at that point, and the rest is starting to suffer. Equality then activates ANOTHER round of swipe, which means that anything below 4 health is going to explode, Imps of no Imps.

Another card that I'm considering is good 'ole taz'dingo, more than Sunfury. Could possibly throw the Squires out for either of them. Another idea is Noble Defender, which I really like as a 1-drop. Sure, it's predictable, but it's still impossible to kill (unlike most taunters) if you're not a Hunter.

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.

Mage wasn't nerfed for the meta, it was nerved because it isn't fun not being able to do anything for multiple turns in a row. However there were counters to it with heal decks and beefy minion decks. The current flavor are Warlucs which can be countered by specific classes, rogues are good, and specific card combos.

We live in a society where people born on third base constantly try to steal second, yet we expect people born with two strikes against them to hit a homerun on the first pitch.

if you look for interactive games, you're not playing the correct game. both in cons and arena maybe 1 in 5 of my games is actually close. most games someone is ahead and never falls back. close games where it swings back and forth, dunno, at least for me that doesn't happen all that often. the mechanic of being able to attack creatures stops it mostly. in magic you can use your life as a resource while coming back from a bad board situation. in HS that rarely works as your opponent just keeps wiping out your creatures and there's only very few cards that allow you to come back.

don't get me wrong, I like the game. but the whole game is not build with close board states in mind. it's just super swingy. usually if you win, you win by a mile.

Interestingly my experience is that - apart from a few games - I usually either win or lose in a few turns in the end of the game where it couldgo either way.Maybe thats just because I'm fairly low ranked, so my opponents are (equally) inexperienced / low card choice.

I just reached rank 10. I'm sure to drop back out quickly, but still, progress!

My Shaman deck seems to be very very good against Warlock rush, but I have trouble with Paladins. A lot of my games go into an extended late game where I'm doing everything I can to prevent the opponent killing me, and it comes down to eventually either running out of options, or finally getting a few minions + bloodlust.

I think the numbers are starting to thin out by rank 10. Getting matched up with people two ranks above me.

I've played a lot this week, and so far it seems to me that mass minion removal is a must. I'm covered in Hunter and Druid (Swipe, Multishot etc) but I feel as if both my Shaman decks could really use Lightning Storm (which I'm not going to get any time soon). My shammydecks still win (one with BL, one with WF) but if I fall behind I can mostly just concede right away.

Yeah, I'm much stronger now I have double Lightning Storm. Though often I have to hope for a spellpower totem for it to be fully effective. Lightning Storm and Forked lightning are great removal, but the damage can be a little low.

On the other end, I've started playing my Druid a little and I'm seriously missing having any hard removal for big minions. Really lacking in that department. I have Keeper of the Grove for silences, but nothing that eliminates the enormous big guy. I played against a player who dropped Ragnaros then Faceless Manipulator'd my Ancient of War, and I couldn't do a damn thing about either of them. I feel like I have to start running Naturalize, which isn't ideal.

Tinkmaster Overspark would be a long term goal for that deck, since it serves as big guy removal for anything better than a blank 5.

KysenMurrin wrote:I think the numbers are starting to thin out by rank 10. Getting matched up with people two ranks above me.

A regular ranked game is zero-sum: the winner takes a star from the loser. New stars are injected into the system from win streaks (which stop at rank 5) or from matches where the loser is at ground floor and can't lose another rank.

KysenMurrin wrote:On the other end, I've started playing my Druid a little and I'm seriously missing having any hard removal for big minions. Really lacking in that department. I have Keeper of the Grove for silences, but nothing that eliminates the enormous big guy. I played against a player who dropped Ragnaros then Faceless Manipulator'd my Ancient of War, and I couldn't do a damn thing about either of them. I feel like I have to start running Naturalize, which isn't ideal.

all 2 ofs but the legendairies. worked quite well so far. basically the soul fires, power overwhelming and suicidal-charge mininos pissed me off. they were great a while ago, but now everyone either plays massive healing or high toughness taunt mobs. or both. against that it felt really stupid to have these super aggressive cards designed to deal exactly 30 damage. just came short too often and then with that stuff in your deck, it feels hardly possibly to come back.

this deck still has the whole aggressive buff-each-other creature chain but just doesn't run out of steam so fast and has two unconditional removal spells against ramp decks. priestress also helps against swipe. only problem is that jaraxxus won me a lot of the games against slow druid/priest/shaman decks. so without him this warlock version gets a lot worse. syvanas is ok but hasn't been all that amazing.

Also this is of course worse in the 'mirror' against another aggressive warlock deck. not having soul fires hurts, but I just don't think doomguard + soul fire is playable in the same deck. you just never get to the point where you can cast them for free as you always have to pitch one into the other. that being said, doomguard especially paried with defender of argus can be fairly insane against rush decks as well, but that obviously requires you to draw the defender after playing the doomguard, so unfortunately not that easy to pull off.

in other news, had a ridiculous arena game the other day. the gaming gods surely pulled that on me for my statement earlier in this thread that there are few swingy games and few comebacks.I'm playing priest against a mage, he has a very, very good spot for flamestrike and doesn't cast it. he could have killed like 3 creatures and instead I attacked him down to single digits. So I figured he just doesn't have it and played 2 more guys.Obviously it gets cast next turn. now he's got 3 minions in play, nothing overly amazing though and 3 cards in hand. I have nothing. I draw a 2/3 windfury. Click escape and mouse goes to the concede button. Then I figured, wth, game will go on at most 2 more turns so might as well see if I can maybe find temple enforcer or something that gets me back into it.Pass the turn, he casts another unexciting minion. I draw temple enforcer. Cast both, stuff trades, favorable for me. I draw Injured Blademaster. Cast it, heal it to tough 5. he attacks me instead of trading 2 of his minions for my blademaster and again has nothing really great.I draw northshire priest. cast it, heal blademaster. draw the 1/2 engineer. cast it. draw - defender of argus. cast it, giving blademaster and engineer taunt. he just makes a guy and passes. I draw circle of healing. Won the game 2-3 turns later with a full grip.

I've started seeing Warlocks running more mid-range lately. My Druid and Shaman decks really blunt the usual low rush, so it's an interestingchange of pace. Doomguards, Felguards, and things like SSCs and Defenders of Argus.

Also came across a new type of Priest yesterday. They played very few minions (I did see some. Clerics, Injured Blademaster, some Wolfriders for removal) and mostly used spells. They played Thoughtsteal, Mind Vision, Mindgames, Cabal Shadow Priest, Shadow Madness, two MCs, and Faceless Manipulator, and killed minions with Holy Nova, Smite, Holy Fire, and the Shadow Words. Basically, the deck took advantage of the fact people are playing big minions now, and just kept your board controlled while turning your own deck against you. It was pretty frustrating (particularly when Mindgames played out my Sylvanas).

There were a few minions in there, but it's really a staller deck until they can use and abuse MC/Facelesses. I think you need an agressive stance against those (minding Holy Nova's, of course).

Finally broke rank 10 in the meanwhile, but this is really starting to get rough to keep going up. I'v kept playing around with my deck and I'll probably throw in Thinkmaster whenever I can for some more removal. here's the list, if you're curious.

I kinda like SYlvanas because she actually throw plans askew, a bit like most of my late cards. Which typically means I eat mid-range deck for breakfast, tend to 50/50 against rushers (depending on my luck on Consecs/Equals/Wyld) and have *massive* trouble against controller's big guns. I should probably throw something out for BGH's or Avenging Wraths, but I still can't find what.

When that day comes, seek all the light and wonder of this world, and fight.